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Friday, December 13, 2013

Review: Red

Top student. Beauty
queen. Girlfriend of the hottest football jock: Felicity's got
everything. And it's all down to her red, red hair. Felicity
lives in Scarletville, the world's only redhead sanctuary, where red
hair is celebrated, protected - and the key to success.

But Felicity has a secret. A red hot secret. And if anyone finds out, she's finished.Because Felicity's actually a natural blonde.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley via Quercus in exchange for a honest review. This does not affect my review/opinions in any way.

Ever since I heard about Red on Twitter, I was really excited about it, so when I was approved a copy, I read it immediately! Although it didn't really sound like my type of book, I liked the sound of the concept.

The concept, in short, is a modern version of racial issues, using hair colour as the basis. As a complete history nerd, myself, I found that this interested me to see what happened throughout the book. The way things were described, such as how other hair colours were treated, such as not being elected for things, really wanted to make me go on into the book.

I think my honest only gripe about this book was that it was very American and some of it was VERY cliche. But, it's obviously intended to be American, and the cliches worked. The tiny flaw of the book made it ever more perfect.

And as per usual, I loved the love interest of the book, Jonathan. Even if he was a brunette, I would go for any arty, smart boy who took me out for fries because my prom wasn't working out. One quote I absolutely adored from the book was

"Jonathan played with his cuff link, suddenly unable to

meet Felicity's eyes. 'Well... the girl I really wanted to ask

was-um-indisposed, I guess."

It's hard to explain what I felt for the protagonist, Felicity. I found it slightly annoying that she wouldn't just stand up to her mum and stay a strawbie, but then, I'm a bit of a feminist and it all works out in the end, not saying anything about that.

A little thing that interested me throughout the book were little recurring phrases, such as "red cred". It showed how Felicity was very focused on her social status, and afraid of being outed as a strawbie. Again, this goes back to the amazing concept of modern racism. Also, little bits of humour were added throughout, for example one of their history lectures was "Vikings in the History of Redheadedness".

Altogether, I really enjoyed this book as a refreshing, but thought-provoking, read, and I'd recommend it to anyone with a love of a good concept and contemporary US Young Adult.

10 comments:

Reading the synopsis, I wasn't quite sure if this appealed to me! But actually this sounds really good thanks to your review! :D I like the idea of using hair as a way of tackling racial issues. That's quite original actually. I may have to check this out now- thanks for a great review, Charli! :D

To be honest, I'm not sure if I'd be able to handle this, with it's stereotypes and unoriginality, but you never know, I might give it a go one day since you loved it so much. Great review, Charli! ^_^